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I get that it's not the intention, but this post reads like praising one set of peoples as innately good and scolding another as innately bad.

Illiterate Vietnamese, Chinese, Russian, Cuban, Laotian (etc.) peasants who were born into a level of poverty which Americans not only will never experience but will never even witness were able to learn theory while being murdered by the west and by domestic bourgeois.

I think this might indicate that they were shown or convinced in some way that reading was important for their survival. I think that's a little stronger of an understood incentive than anything we have in America.

However, you'll have to accept that when someone who knows better than you because they did read theory corrects you, you should listen to them.

My intuition is that giving the impression that "you should defer to someone who has read more theory than you/read X amount of theory" is a belief people who read theory have is extremely counterproductive towards building this understood incentive. I think it's an idea worth letting go of.

when someone who knows better than you because they did read theory corrects you, you should listen to them

there are a significant number of people, not all western, who at least claim to have read theory but use "bourgeois" and "proletarian" entirely incorrectly
if this hypothetical person who has not read any theory at all is "corrected" by one of these people how are they to know that what they are being told is incorrect?

Eye-opening read, thanks! I'm way too ignorant to comment on the main thrust, so -

I found it useful (if a big bummer, far from my first) to learn about Orwell. I only read him as a kid, could never have noticed all that, and honestly would have likely just reread uncritically, given the impact those books made on me as a youth. Cryptofascist pig, and that's just for starters, neat!

And then the stuff summed up by this pair of lines, woof. Finally helped me understand something I've noticed forever, seen discussed plenty too, but could never quite put my finger on, causally (and I certainly attributed the phenomena and my confusion to some vague, hand-wavy "brainwashing", as per the essay). Probably needs the preceding material to be impactful/explanatory:

"Every death under socialism is a failure of the government, because it dared to try to solve problems collectively. Under capitalism, deaths are due to the individual’s failures, and therefore no one’s responsibility."

Can't wait to hammer friends and family with that shit at Thanksgiving! (tongue-in-cheek, I promise, I didn't entirely miss the point lol)

Americans are the most lazy, stupid and propagandised population perhaps in human history. I think they could stand to learn how to enjoy reading tbh.

However true, calling people dumbfucks and telling them to do something they don't want to do is not effective.

Not everyone needs to be a thought leader of the vanguard. Instill basic principles, encourage further exploration, provide resources. Some people will get curious/interested enough to read theory.

I mean, I'm a "dumb, lazy, stupid, and propagandized" American, and I actually enjoy reading theory. This is from somebody who used to tell people, "I'm not a reader". Most of that stems from the fact that I went nearly 28 years without knowing I had treatable ADHD, and then another 10 years to realize America is built to keep people like me from getting the help I needed.

Lazy is a word I also can't fucking stand, because it's a whesel word; it's not a real description of the reasons why people behave how they do, and it allows you to avoid doing the real work of actually getting to the root of people's behavior, be it an individual or a group.

Americans read plenty. There's still millions of books being sold. Americans will read pages worth of social media slop.

It's just those books are young adult fiction, romantacy and other forms of entertainment. A stressed out full time worker with kids at home and stress over paying the bills, who might be doordashing at night to make ends meet, isn't gonna want to curl up with Capital when they finally have some time to relax.

I know it's cathartic to complain, but as organizers our job is to find solutions and meet people where they are, not hope they will come to us. So what do you suggest we do about this?

I've read Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and I barely have a high school education.

I have a deep affection for a number of theses in the book but as far as I got in it, it just felt like some of the worst, most obtuse mode of communication in a flowery continental style. Maybe it gets better in other parts or I was reading a poor translation (I think it's still the most recent one to get printed).

TBH, this guy seems to be arguing with a person he made up in his head.

The gist of the video is that he is saying most people don't enjoy reading so use different avenues to engage in radical education with others on the left, like podcasts and videos.